If nobody in the game world wants anything, why even play? Player characters usually have some sort of motivation, whether that's "save the blacksmith's daughter" or "get treasure" or "seal away the ancient horrible evil before it can be unleashed upon the world". NPCs and monsters need to want things, too. What are the owlbear's … Continue reading NPCs with motivation and agency
In Gothic Brunch a few weeks ago, the group determined they wanted to go do some research at a library. Now, what kind of a game would I be running if the library didn't have a secret basement with forbidden tomes and unspeakable secrets? For this map, I once again depended on Elven Tower. This … Continue reading Forbidden Level of the Creedhall Library
What low-level monsters are both interesting and not problematic? The pendulum swing between tiers of play means that we occasionally want to focus on those early levels, as Matt Colville has talked about. And in D&D, that usually means undead, orcs, goblins, and kobolds. I won't worry about undead too much here; the major problem … Continue reading Thinking about low-level monsters
Leave No Trace - Pat Lee I recently left my last Adventurers League campaign, in which a player from my Out of the Abyss campaign is now running Waterdeep: Dragon Heist for approximately the same group. A number of reasons led to this choice, including the AL Season 8 ruleset. However, the fact that I really prefer the GM … Continue reading What other folks say about running versus playing games
I love maps. Ever since I was young, I always loved "antique maps", whether of the entire world or a region or to illustrate an event. The maps in our family Bible fascinated me and I'd trace my fingers along the paths of Paul's missionary trips as much as those of ancient Judea. These days, … Continue reading 5 Mappers to support on Patreon
I recently concluded two long-running campaigns, both of which started in late 2017. After some reflection and discussion with the players, I realized that I could extract some lessons to improve my future role-playing games. This post isn't really a review of the source material, just an overview of what I learned from running this campaign. … Continue reading Out of the Abyss campaign review
For the last several months, I have had the good fortune to play about as much D&D as I can handle. The large majority of these games have occurred under the banner of the Adventurers League on Roll20 (using Discord for voice and out-of-game text chat) and, to a lesser extent, at a local gaming … Continue reading How I recruit for online AL games
Our group finished Sloobludop this week. That means, yes, we got the big scene and I hope it felt suitably epic for them. Week 2 The previous week largely consisted of random encounters for leveling and environment, then a big fight against the kuo-toa loyal to the Deep Father. I don't set up full maps … Continue reading Out of the Abyss: Campaign Diary 2
After completing "Forge of Fury", the adventurers had not all leveled to 5. This meant they couldn't start "Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan" as a group. We talked about options, and eventually we decided to run Out of the Abyss instead. That led to further discussion about whether or not to stick with Adventurers League for the … Continue reading Out of the Abyss: Campaign Diary 1
As a way of easing myself back into playing D&D "publicly" (i.e. not just for my kids or solo), I set up a couple of mini-campaigns on Roll20 to run according to Adventurers League rules. This way, I would have an easy time finding players and also an excuse for doing so in an episodic, … Continue reading Review: Harried in Hillsfar
Technoskald's Forge 